Its been along time since I have been wowed by Carrara.
While I have jumped on the band wagon, I think its sad that we have collectively digressed to, "I'm just happy they are still working on it."
With Carrara's potential, it should own the market.

I still have a huge problem paying for upgrades for Carrara - When Daz Studio is a free ride.
On this last upgrade, I feel like we financed a lot of coding and programming time that translated into What?
nothing more than opportunity for Daz to sell content to Carrara users. And to what end?
I hope that i am wrong but I fee that Daz will can continue down a path finding new ways of financing programs that only drive the sales of content. Carrara and Carrara users deserve better. Am I the only on that feels this way?

I'll wait to see the next evolution of Carrara. I hope 9.0 reveals that Daz focused attention directly on Carrara - I'm tired of attention to and love to Daz Studio via Carrara. It's too obvious.

If I am to continue to finance Daz3d - I want more from my investment than what I have received.

Comments

Please make Carrara 9 fully aware and fully compliant with Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 DPI system setting! Also make other improvements in the area of visual and ergonomic use, especially with regards to more flexibility in the UI, including preferences options for bigger buttons, wider scroll bars, and other usability improvements targeted at people with vision challenges, or just big high-resolution monitors.

I would make myself available for alpha and beta testing for such an effort!

Agreed! (Though I'm not sure what the "anything tangible" bit refers to...) The presets are looking pretty old, and I've only been using Carrara since version 8.

I also felt that the v.8.5 splash screen was a downgrade from v.8. As a working illustrator & designer, I'm not often wowed by anything that looks like what the community calls "content" (even though I understand its role and value). Arguably Carrara is and should continue to be on a level above that, but the splash screen...the splash screen just needs to be better, like it could have been commissioned by an ad agency. When it looks like something from a sig at the old forum...nah.

I'm really happy with the stability achieved in 8.5 and hope v.9 does break some new ground, freshen things up, etc.

maybe a feature that not only supports rendering for multi core processors, rendering with graphics card could maybe also be interesting if it can use multicore and graphic rendering together.

Isn't the Luxrender plugin supposed to do that pretty soon?

Personally, I like the built in renderer. It's much faster than Studio's.

I would like to see updates on some of the features that Carrara already has that may be getting a bit cludgy due to age or have unresolved issues.

Hair is one area that needs improvement for dynamic simulations and how it interacts with other scene elements such as volumetric clouds.

Speaking of volumetric clouds, they could be a bit easier to animate. For instance, what does the animate button even do? If I press it, does it enable animation or disable it? Does it alter the cloud shape over time?

Any chance of this thread being stickied and made into a official request/wishlist thread for Carrara 9? or another one created that is official?

I've got a few features I'd like to request as well but if this thread is going to be swept to the bottommost pages & forgotten in a few days then posting anything here is probably a pointless exercise. I have seen other forums that have dedicated threads where forum members can post up their personal wish list for the next release and I think it would be nice If Daz had something like this.

If Carrara 9 would come Q4 this year or Q1 next, we probably wouldn't see huge changes, as Q4 is already started, and it would mean a new version coming out in less than 6 months from now. It would mean extra costs, but it would also mean limited improvements. I hope that before we even discuss Carrara 9, we will have Carrara 8.6, and maybe 8.7 and other versions with actual gradual improvements.

Why I am saying this? For a good reason. I have started to use DAZ Studio with version 4 (after I bought Poser Pro 2012, but before I got it). I loved genesis and some of the DAZ content. When I have seen some discount for Carrara, I tried to ask if it supports the content I already have. Of course descriptions said it supports DAZ content, but I wasn't sure if it supports all. DAZ failed to answer for weeks, so I had to buy it before getting an answer. One of the biggest promise for Carrara is the somewhat smooth transition where we can use existing content we have. Supporting most DAZ Content would be the key, as it is a key selling point.

Of course 8.1 didn't support Genesis at all. It was a huge disappointment, because most of the content I bought were designed for Genesis. It was the reason for choosing DAZ Studio over Poser.

So I used 8.5 beta, and I learned I will have to upgrade for a minimal fee. Of course the upgrade price wasn't minimal in the first days, but later it was somewhat affordable, but it was still some extra cost (not planned at time of purchase)

Sadly some content still doesn't work with Carrara 8.5 Pro. No Supersuit presets if we speak about genesis related content. Sadly if people move from DAZ Studio to Carrara, it can be a problem if their existing content doesn't work. For DAZ originals and important products it would be possible to provide Carrara compatibility. It would be somewhat easy to update Supersuit presets to work with Carrara 8.5. But it should happen *before* any more paid upgrade.

I am sure I am not the only one who came from DAZ Studio to Carrara. And I am sure a lot of people would love to use the existing content. But as is, we don't have support for dynamic clothes, and using bullet pshysic with clothes is pretty hard to say the least, and there are no good examples for this in the store.

A lot of contests here in DAZ Forum doesn't allow Carrara renders. Because Carrara is mostly ignored. Are you sure an equally ignored Carrara 9 with minor additions would help?

Carrara 9 with some features for content, some minor updates would be only an extra costs. If DAZ would support 8.5 fully and solve a lot of problems by updating some content, it would be awesome. Yes, some of the native contents can be upgraded as well. But fix key functionality with 8.5 first, update products and when it is done, a real new major version (Carrara 9) should be more doable.

I am sure as hell, that if we get new major version in a few months with minor additions, then maybe $1700 later in Carrara 19 we will have support for using existing DAZ content that was promised with sale of Carrara 8. So I hope we will see 8.6, 8.7 and other stuff and see what should have been in 8.1 or 8.5 will be included and compatibility with DAZ content will be provided for big bundles like Supersuit....

Collision/Smoothing modifier like the one that is in DS...there is no substitute!!!!! (5 out of 5 exclamation points)

...yes, it's even more important than the next Millennium Cow.

Yes please, this is vital. The pokethrough I get makes using figures impossible. Either implement smoothing and collision, or give us a morph brush to fix these things like Poser has had for several versions now. As it stands, using DS4.6 with Hexagon works far better than using Cararra Pro.

Daz finish C8?? Ah-hah-hah!! Their idea of finishing C8 was to edit the posts of promised features to remove the things they couldn't do, then deny they ever promised features in the first place. The only way they can sell their software is to give it away free or pawn it off at 60% discount. I'd never pay for this cheap junk otherwise.

1. Stop popping me to the top of the shader tree when I double click to edit a shader for a character. (I scroll down to hip, double click to open the hip shader, right hand shader tree goes to top. I scroll down to leg, double click to open the leg shader, shader tree goes to the top again. why do I have to keep scrolling down???)

2. Start using right click to initiate applicable commands. If I right click on a scene, let me choose to load or import it.

5. Please give me a path to externally saved texture maps when I'm inside of the texture editor. I hate having to try and find where the external texture map is stored.
Boojum the brown bunny

If I'm understanding what you're seeking, there is a way to do this now. If you are in the texture editor and have selected a texture mapped channel, if you just hover your mouse over the name of the file after a second a pop up description window appears that shows the pathway from C: to find that file. Just thought I would mention, if it helps, as I use this feature all the time to figure out where the texture map came from.

Ah ha! Silly me, I was mousing over the picture and couldn't figure out why it wasn't telling me where it was.. and I couldn't find any path widget. Thanks! *giggle* The rest of the suggestions still stand, though.
Boojum the brown bunny

My votes (in no particular order) would be:
- dynamic hair needs better integration, so that it animates properly in figures without using a proxy, it appears in depth maps and other multi-pass layers correctly, that it responds to depth of field properly, etc.
- dynamic clothing works much better than it does;
- improvements to surface replicators including a shader option that allows each instance to be a random separate solid color (chosen from a gradient for example), that if you nest replicators you have the option to have each instance randomised, an integrated distribution painter (like that for Vue's ecosystems) would be cool too.
- full integration of gamma adjustment for all colors and textures, including hair, backgrounds, backdrops etc. Full implementation of a linear workflow.
- blurred reflections limited to one bounce (you can set it to this, but it still does two anyway!!).

I like to refer to these things as wishlist ---because like wishes often many do not come true but conversely some do!!

1. Add a little love to the vertex modeler.....for me a few of the things not in hex added to Carrara's vertex would be cool. And any tidbits of love to the spline modeler would be nice.
2. Improvements to the realistic skies ---
3. Everyone's favorite --better dynamic cloth simulation.
4. improvements to the terrain editor.....(heck bryce's is better)
5. improvements to bones...general rigging help.

5. Please give me a path to externally saved texture maps when I'm inside of the texture editor. I hate having to try and find where the external texture map is stored.
Boojum the brown bunny

If I'm understanding what you're seeking, there is a way to do this now. If you are in the texture editor and have selected a texture mapped channel, if you just hover your mouse over the name of the file after a second a pop up description window appears that shows the pathway from C: to find that file. Just thought I would mention, if it helps, as I use this feature all the time to figure out where the texture map came from.

Ah...but wouldn't it be great if you could open that folder then directly (or even copy, so I could paste that path)? Instead of trying to remember, c:\something\something\content\runtime\textures\creator\figure\texturemap1_b.jpg

Instead just click the open folder button, and the default is where that texture resides...that would be good!

1. Stop popping me to the top of the shader tree when I double click to edit a shader for a character. (I scroll down to hip, double click to open the hip shader, right hand shader tree goes to top. I scroll down to leg, double click to open the leg shader, shader tree goes to the top again. why do I have to keep scrolling down???)

2. Start using right click to initiate applicable commands. If I right click on a scene, let me choose to load or import it.

4. Let the full body morphs I create in Daz Studio be usable in Carrara. right now if I create an FBM using GenX it is missing from Carrara.

5. Please give me a path to externally saved texture maps when I'm inside of the texture editor. I hate having to try and find where the external texture map is stored.

6. Fix dynamic hair for animations so it doesn't jitter. right now, Dynamic Hair only works in static pictures and is worthless for animations.

7. Get dynamic cloth for clothing working.

Boojum the brown bunny

Yes on all points, except as far as I can see (so far anyway) my genx morphs from Daz are importing nicely, and the V4 dials work on Gen characters I've imported into a Cararra scene file. But certain clothing items seem to have non functioning dials and otthers work fine. Likewise some clothing saved in scene with a character imports and conforms with managable pokethrough while others look abysmal and are unworkable.

For example when rendering a scene (I have a 12 core system), and more often than not half of the available cores will complete their sections of the render leaving the other half furiously working on a particularly math intensive area such as hair for example.

This means that half of my processing power ends up sitting idle.

I would like to see Carrara re-assign available cores to difficult rendering areas, much the same as Cinema4Ds' render engine does.

This could GREATLY increase render times, particularly if it could also be applied to network rendering.

For example when rendering a scene (I have a 12 core system), and more often than not half of the available cores will complete their sections of the render leaving the other half furiously working on a particularly math intensive area such as hair for example.

This means that half of my processing power ends up sitting idle.

I would like to see Carrara re-assign available cores to difficult rendering areas, much the same as Cinema4Ds' render engine does.

This could GREATLY increase render times, particularly if it could also be applied to network rendering.

A few more:
1) Ability to pause a rendering (anywhere in the process) and then proceed at any later time.
2) Ability to redefine Carrara's task priority (e.g., lower app priority so that rendering doesn't lock the computer up because it is sucking all of CPU resources). [In Windows, you can change this, but it is a pain to do. It should be an option in the app.]
3) Ability to limit the number of threads to a specified #. (Currently, it uses all of them)
4) Better directly usable and detailed objects for plants, clouds, and terrains. The current set are "okay" for a basic set, but not of much use for detailed rendering. E.g., you can use predefined plants for distant work, but they look atrocious up close. Same with clouds and terrain shaders. Carrara should come with better "out of the box" usable examples/instantiations based on these and other objects.
5) Improved importing of objects - 95% of the time I import something, there is a ton of rework involved. Adjusting import options don't seem to help. Even importing Bryce objects is a real pain (and that seems odd!).
6) Improved management of objects I create and want to reuse across different scenes; e.g., ability to easily "drop" objects to places other than "My Objects"

Standard grid sizes, if you want to start with an empty scene, are (1) 30 inches, (2) 30 feet, and (3) 3000 feet. And I've always kind of wondered about that jump in sizes. Yes, you can go into View | Grid and change the sizing of the grid to whatever you want, but if you're going to provide a menu of grid sizes, you might as well put in more options or make it customizable.

Instead of three radio buttons, please consider putting a menu there showing the default choices above, plus any others that the user might have created.

To add items to the customized list, change the settings in the Grid dialog, enter a name for the preset (new text field), and save it (new save button).

To delete items from the customized list, a pop-up windoid could provide a selectable current list, a delete button, and a close button when you're done.

A few more:
1) Ability to pause a rendering (anywhere in the process) and then proceed at any later time.
2) Ability to redefine Carrara's task priority (e.g., lower app priority so that rendering doesn't lock the computer up because it is sucking all of CPU resources). [In Windows, you can change this, but it is a pain to do. It should be an option in the app.]
3) Ability to limit the number of threads to a specified #. (Currently, it uses all of them)
4) Better directly usable and detailed objects for plants, clouds, and terrains. The current set are "okay" for a basic set, but not of much use for detailed rendering. E.g., you can use predefined plants for distant work, but they look atrocious up close. Same with clouds and terrain shaders. Carrara should come with better "out of the box" usable examples/instantiations based on these and other objects.
5) Improved importing of objects - 95% of the time I import something, there is a ton of rework involved. Adjusting import options don't seem to help. Even importing Bryce objects is a real pain (and that seems odd!).
6) Improved management of objects I create and want to reuse across different scenes; e.g., ability to easily "drop" objects to places other than "My Objects"

If you are a Windows user, then there is a little tool called "Process Lasso" that will remove items 2 and 3 from your list. It completely removes the need for you to mess around with your CPU scheduling by temporarily changing priorities so as to keep your computer responsive. Changing your system's affinity or priorities on your own could end up slowing down your system. With Process Lasso, you'll never even know it's running even if some task has nearly 100% of every core in your system.

There is a trial, free, and paid version. I did the trial, then I used the free version for a few months, and finally I bought something like a 5 seat license so I could run it on more than one Windows system. It's not expensive and you can just install it and let it run at boot.